


In Sickness and in Health

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [168]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avenger Loki (Marvel), Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Illnesses, Loki is a Good Bro (Marvel), M/M, Nausea, Reader-Insert, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28540998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: When a stomach bug takes you out, Loki is there to prop you up.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [168]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 11
Kudos: 113





	In Sickness and in Health

**Author's Note:**

> One morning this week, I woke up feeling icky and ended up writing this story. Make sure you’re staying hydrated! And eating well! And doing your best to keep to a sleep schedule!

There was nothing like an upset stomach when it came to making you feel like a little kid again. 

You weren’t great at being sick. Especially lately, you couldn’t help but notice how pathetic and whiny you became any time you woke up feeling a little under the weather. But that was happening more and more lately. Stress and uncertainty—and fluctuating weather patterns outside—made it entirely too common for you to wake up with a nasty headache, one that was sure to last until the next morning. You weren’t getting outside nearly as much anymore, but it was like your indoors allergies were getting worse and worse, so sometimes you were just itchy and sniffly and awful. Admittedly, you hadn’t had nearly as many colds as you’d had in the past, and you could only assume that it was because a lot more people in the world were finally paying more attention to hygiene and how much bodily fluid they sprayed out of their faces. 

In the past, you’d almost considered it a badge of honor, the way you could get through your day as though nothing was wrong even when your head felt like it was going to split open. You could manage your way through your tasks at work even when your sinuses felt swollen and achy. But something—lockdown, the general state of the world, who knew—had changed, and it was growing harder and harder to ignore your ailments. 

You woke up feeling fine. Granted, you didn’t feel _fantastic_ , but even that wasn’t uncommon lately. You’d laid there in bed for entirely too long because getting up felt impossible, but you were perfectly capable of gazing at Loki’s implausibly-perfect face as he slept peacefully beside you. He deserved that. He deserved so much more than that. He’d been here for months now, and he just kept surprising you with new facets of his personality. So far, it seemed that there was nothing you could do or show him that could possibly make him love you any less. He’d showed up here mere weeks into this whole nightmare, and he had yet to give any sign of wanting to leave. You were almost starting to accept that he could be happy with you.

You watched for a while as the rising sun spilled over his face, as it caressed his profile and illuminated his perfect cheekbones and glittered in his hair. He was the fey prince in all the fairy tales you’d heard growing up, but he was so much more than that besides. 

After a while, you dragged yourself out of bed, doing your best not to wake him. Some mornings, just the heaviness of your gaze was apparently enough to pull him up to wakefulness, but he barely moved this morning. He needed to sleep a little longer, and you would die before you took that away from him. You did your best to ignore your grogginess as you brushed your teeth, and then forced yourself to turn on the shower, despite what a herculean task it felt like today. If you didn’t shower, you knew you’d only spend the rest of the day feeling awful. Ultimately, it was worth it to tackle it as quickly as you could.

By the time you were finally turning off the water, queasiness was setting in. The bathroom felt especially cold as you dried yourself off, but you couldn’t shake the feeling that, if you moved too quickly, you might throw up. By the time you were ready to get dressed, it was difficult for you to bend over to go through the drawers of your dresser. Still, you moved as silently as you could. Loki was still asleep, his breaths halfway to snoring, that sound that made you feel warm and happy inside. 

But it didn’t magically fix your stomach. Idly, you ran through all the possibilities as you made your way into the kitchen. Dinner last night was normal: the same meal you’d had dozens of times in the last few months, made with fresh ingredients cooked all the way through. Lunch yesterday was just a sandwich—and certainly nothing that could be making you sick today. Anyway, if you were feeling like this because of something you ate, shouldn’t Loki be feeling at least a little sick too? He literally had the immune system—and digestive system—of a god, so probably a little Earth bacteria wouldn’t take him down, but he should have felt _something_ , right?

You hesitated with your hand on the cabinet where you kept your coffee supplies. Coffee seemed a little dangerous. Just imagining adding that black, acidic liquid to whatever was happening in your stomach right now made you feel a little bit worse. You’d skip it for today, you decided. Better to be safe than sorry.

After what felt like forever, you took a glass of water and a plate of plain toast into your living room. Eating was probably the furthest thing from your mind right now, but the part of your brain that was not currently occupied by whining and moaning about how you were feeling knew that you should probably eat _something_. You tucked yourself into the corner of the couch and did your best to make yourself nibble at a piece of toast here and there. 

You didn’t _like_ this new aspect of your personality, this pathetic whininess that cropped up all too often, but it was hard to fight it. Loki made things even more difficult. You tried to keep these kinds of things hidden from him—he was a celestial god who had most assuredly held his chin up through lifetimes of discomfort and torture worse than you could possibly imagine. There was no question about that. His nightmares told you all that you needed to know about what he’d survived. Making a big deal out of your tiny Earthly ailments felt like you were insulting him. But he’d already been here long enough to pick up on your tells. Hell, even before lockdown happened, he was starting to pick up on the signs you used to give when you weren’t feeling your best. And when you tried to hide your headaches from him, tried to grit your teeth and force yourself to keep working as though everything was fine (because it _was_ ), he was terrible about finding ways to coax you into taking time to feel bad—primarily so he could hold you and make you feel better. 

He never gave even the slightest little hint that he was getting fed up with all your sick days. Of course he didn’t seem to enjoy it when you weren’t feeling well, but by now he did know what to do. He’d sweep you into his arms and play with your hair and caress your face. He’d squeeze your shoulders and draw gentle patterns on the skin of your back and lull you into a dozy state of bliss that left no room for misery. He held you so sweetly—like he always did—and murmur stories into the top of your head in a quiet voice. He’d sit there and encourage you to put your work away and just lie there against him so he could distract you from the way you were feeling. And the few times that you went to him of your own accord when you weren’t feeling well, instead of waiting for him to notice? Lord, it was like he wanted to reward you for that, with the softest kisses all over your face and forehead and eyelids, and the sweetest lullabies under his breath and the pet names and the touching and just…

Maybe it was Loki’s fault that you’d become so whiny lately. Who _wouldn’t_ seek out that kind of attention from him every chance they got?

The rest of your morning was spent more or less gazing blankly at the book in your lap and trying to ignore the smell of the toast that still sat, mostly untouched, on the arm of the couch. If you could focus on that book enough to slip into the world of the story, maybe you could forget about all of this for a while, but that was easier said than done. 

After a while, you heard a quiet, telltale rustling from the bedroom. It prompted you to take a larger bite of a slice of toast in a quick, immediately-aborted attempt to hide the evidence from Loki. You regretted it immediately, of course: the idea of sending that much chewed-up, mushy bread down into your stomach made you feel like you couldn’t swallow a darn thing. So you focused on chewing slowly, and swallowing tiny bits even more slowly, even as you listened to Loki move through his morning routine in the bathroom.

By the time he was finished and came looking for you, you’d taken a tiny sip of water and directed your attention back towards your book. You heard the way he hovered in the doorway. You felt his eyes taking in the sight of you. It almost felt pointless to try to hide anything from him, but you did your best to smile nonetheless. 

“Alright, love?” It was his Morning voice, that low, grumbly sound that rumbled through his chest and the air in the room and made you long to bury your face against his throat. You gave a quick, tight nod, but still didn’t look up at him. It wasn’t so much that you were trying to hide any of this from him. Odds were good that he’d figured out exactly what was up the moment he laid eyes on you. You just didn’t necessarily want to smack him with the full force of your misery, that was all. He took in your silence and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Have you had breakfast? Shall I make you something?”

Appreciation flooded through you even as your stomach clenched. He was offering to make you breakfast. Loki was. The man that people—including most of the Avengers—hated and wanted dead. They’d never see this side of him, and that hurt your heart. “I’m okay. I had toast. Thank you, though.”

You expected him to head into the kitchen, then, to make something for himself, but he continued to hover there. The moments felt like an eternity before he made his way to sit beside you on the sofa. When he reached to caress your cheeks, you couldn’t help but melt into his touch. He didn’t say a word as he smoothed his thumbs along your cheekbones, as he rubbed circles against your temples with his fingers.

“My head is fine,” you said, and rolled your eyes at yourself. “It’s just—my stomach hurts. It’s always something with me, right?”

He moved forward, then, and pressed the gentlest kiss against your lips. And then another one on the corner of your mouth. And then another one on your cheek. The attention felt nice. Your eyes slipped closed and you felt yourself smile a little as he pressed his forehead against your temple. “What can I do?”

That was always his response. He always asked what you needed from him, asked how he could help make things right again. Early on, you’d been quick to shrug him off. You would shake your head and laugh at yourself and promise him that your frail human body would get over this somehow and he didn’t need to worry about you. Because there really wasn’t anything that he _could_ do. You’d mistaken his concern for a need to fix things. It was only recently that you began to realize that he wasn’t necessarily asking how he could magically fix things. He was only asking you what you needed from him.

“Maybe could you...hold me? Talk to me, to distract me from...everything?” Your cheeks burned at the request. Even now, you still felt so silly and selfish asking for things like that, but it was better than telling him he couldn’t do anything at all. He sat up a little, then, and re-positioned himself so that he was lying back against the other arm of the couch, and then gestured for you to come and join him. After a while, you were lying there on his chest, with your head tucked beneath his chin and his arms, solid and warm, wrapping around your back to hold you close.

He kissed your forehead. He caressed your back. He told you stories about Asgard—some new, some familiar. His voice rumbled through his chest and into your body, and it was the best distraction you could ever hope to imagine. You dozed here and there, cradled in his arms, your fingers clutched in his shirt, and, slowly, the peace and comfort you found there began to drive away your illness.

Later that night, as always, Loki would refuse to accept your gratitude. “This is what you do for someone you care about,” he would say to you, in a voice that offered no room for argument. “And I love you, darling.”


End file.
